Side Effects

Probably nobody besides Steven Soderbergh really believes he's retiring from making feature films, but if it's true, "Side Effects" isn't a bad way to go out. It's a gripping, maddening and thoroughly satisfying thriller, made with artfulness and integrity. Soderbergh sees things in his actors and gets things from them that other directors don't.

Written by Scott Z. Burns ("Contagion"), the movie starts as an expose of the pharmaceutical industry, about the culture surrounding mood-altering drugs and the monetary incentive that psychiatrists have to prescribe them. But slowly, the film takes other forms, acquiring velocity as it sets out in other directions. Ultimately, "Side Effects" is no serious exploration of prescription drugs in modern life, but rather a seriously entertaining movie that uses prescription drugs as a backdrop. But that's more than good enough.

In a way it's the first important showcase for Rooney Mara, in that she was fairly unrecognizable in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and her role there was based on a prototype. Here, looking dainty and fragile, she plays a young woman who has been through a four-year trial: Married to her dream man (Channing Tatum) and whisked into a life of luxury, she saw her world cave in when he was arrested for insider trading. Now that he is back after a prison sentence, Emily (Mara) finds herself suffering from a suicidal depression. So she goes to a psychiatrist, who prescribes drugs to stabilize her moods.

If Jude Law, who plays the psychiatrist, loses any more hair in front, he runs the risk of being recognized as a great actor. Soderbergh seems to have caught on to that already. As he did in "Contagion," he brings out Law's inner goofball, as well as his neediness, his latent gentleness and his easily aroused capacity for panic. Or to put it another way, Soderbergh was the first director to figure out that Law is not cool, that he not only can lose his composure, but that nobody bugs out better.

He gets plenty of opportunity to bug out - and explain himself to people who won't listen - and talk loud and be ignored - all of which is hell on the psychiatrist but is acting nirvana for Law, who is exactly in his element. But let's forget plot details, which are best discovered in the moment, and talk about Soderbergh's approach to the thriller genre.

In "Side Effects," Soderbergh is always doing two things at once, pumping the story forward, while creating the illusion of languor. Scenes are underscored with dreamy music, suggestive of people lost in a fog. The shots are longer than average. The camera movement is measured. At times, the style is a visual analogue to being in a depressed state. At other times, the seeming slowness creates a hint of entrapment, as if from the point of view of characters locked into circumstances, unable to free themselves no matter how hard they flail.

Yet this sense of crawl and sprawl is deceptive, because not only is there always something going on, but everything is happening quickly. "Side Effects" is a movie constructed of jolts and reverses, of scenes that end a line or two early, with information skipped and implied. Corners are cut, shortcuts are found, and other scenes are invested in, to the benefit of the actors and the audience.

It's not just Law who thrives, but after this, it's difficult to imagine Mara not having a long and productive career. And who would have thought of Catherine Zeta-Jones for the supporting role of a cold, austere therapist? Soderbergh is today's answer to Howard Hawks, totally different in style and yet with Hawks' feel for actors, story rhythms and genres, and with that Hawksian understanding that boring an audience is just not an option.

Is this really Soderbergh's last film? It's probably important to him that he believe it, so he can recharge his batteries, but few people who are this good at something ever really quit, if only because they never find something else they're equally good at. Thomas Hardy stopped writing novels and wrote poetry for the last third of his life. That's a notable exception. Let's hope Soderbergh isn't another.